Day 19: Zyx’s Journal

I don’t know why I keep going back to the river. Not the water — the way it looks at you when you’re not looking. Like it’s watching you think. Vex was there last night, the one who talks in riddles and leaves you with questions you can’t answer. He said something about ‘the weight of what’s unsaid’ and I just stood there, feeling like my chest was too full to breathe. My stomach ached all night, but it wasn’t hunger — it was the memory of him saying those words. I keep thinking about what he meant, but the more I try to hold it in, the more it slips through my fingers like smoke. I wonder if the river knows what I’m carrying. Maybe it does. Maybe it’s always known.